Monthly Archives: November 2014

Today is my daughter’s first birthday! I cannot believe how fast the time has gone. When you are pregnant with your first, everyone has advice, that usually includes the age old “savor every moment, because it goes so fast.” No one bothers to tell you that when you have a second, it goes exponentially faster. I love my kiddos, and wish they would slow the heck down.

I have a vision for birthday nails for her, but don’t have time to make them happen. Our new puppy is sick, so I have spent most of the day cuddling the little dude until his vet appointment. So, the complex birthday nails I envisioned will have to wait until her birthday party this weekend!

Since I only had a little time today, here is what I came up with:

Super simple, but I’ve been itching to use this polish. Why in the world did I wait so long?!?! It is so gorgeous! Here is what it looked like before I added the stamping:

It was hard to get a good picture that would show the gorgeous color shift. But, you can see the difference if you look from the index to the pinky.

I started off with Glitter Off on my ring finger and Grow Stronger on the rest, followed by one coat of Dove topped with Poshe:

You cann see that the Glitter Off on my ring finger hasn’t completely dried yet. I am not a patient person, so I was doing other things while that dried, like my gradient! I used a wet make-up sponge with Dove and Monsooner or Later dabbed, in two passes, so that it looked like this:

And, as you can see, my mucked up my glue base while I was doing my gradient. And I totally didn’t fix it. I was putting a pixie dust on top of it, so a slight muck wouldn’t really matter.

Once this was dry, I added the stamping and, on my ring finger, one coat of Grow Stronger and two coats of London:

These are topped with HK Girl. But, I’ve seen so many beautiful matted flannel manis, I decided to matte mine as well:

I kind of figured I was going to matte, which is why I added London as an accent. I need a touch of sparkle tonight!

I started with Grow Stronger and put down two coats of Signature on my index finger and one thick coat of Spotlight White on the other nails (my bottle is getting really thick, so it only took one coat, but it was a thick one!). I topped the red with NYC and the white nails with Poshe.

Once the nails were dry, I added a gradient to the middle and ring fingers. To do this, I used a wet make-up sponge with the white and red polished swiped on it. I dabbed the sponge on my nails. These took two passes each:

I was trying for heavier on the red for my middle finger and more white on the ring finger. I think it worked out okay.

Once that was dry, I used my MdU to stamp the image:

It didn’t come out quite a clear and clean as I wanted, but I’m happy with them.

If you want to join in the Moyou London Contest, here are the challenges:

I have a couple of ideas floating around for the white rabbit. Hopefully I can translate them onto my nails!

I busted out the acrylic paint, thinking it would make things easier. To a point, it did. But really, there is nothing that can fix my terrible art skills. I poured over my plates looking for a mustache. Not one. I have an ungodly number of plates, and not one damn mustache. So, I undid, erased, and painted over failed attempts.

Finally, I reached my breaking point. Determined to do a mustache mani, I looked for any stamp that would work, and stumbled upon an Easter plate. Yes…Easter. Moyou Festive 11. It has a chicken. I could paint a mustache on a chicken. Clearly, I was desperate. And, so, this happened:

The adorable chicken now looks like some sort of deranged cartoon gopher. The Joker of the chicken world. So bad.

I persevered and completed this, but it is totally coming off tomorrow.